Black Powder - Freeman's Farm Game

Tonight we played the Freeman's Farm Black Powder game that I set up earlier in the week. I had initially intended on playing the game verbatim from the book, but with extra players expected I expanded the scenario with some creative alternative history. I put Von Breymann's brigade for the British on a faster timetable for their arrival and for the Americans I engaged Patterson's brigade in the battle when historically they remained on Bemis heights. This gave me what I thought would be a good 6-person game. My friends George and Byron played the British While Chris, Charlie and Mike played the Americans. We had one last minute cancellation so Byron and George let me as GM push Von Breymann's flanking force. By the time they arrived the game was mostly running smoothly so I was able to have a little fun pushing troops and answering only the occasional question about rules, etc.

The British had GREAT command rolls in their first few turns and entered the game at almost a dead run crossing the stream and setting up the beginning of some good battle lines. About two-thirds of the way through deploying their lines they had some commanders start to falter and issue only partial commands, but nothing that seriously hampered them.

The Americans were not as fortunate and trickled on at a much more leisurely pace. In the photo above you can see the British mostly deployed while Poor's brigade in the east (top of the photo) are still marching on and Learned's brigade in the west (bottom of the photo) are also bottled up a bit on the road by the British Indians and Canadian loyalists.

Things stabilized and entered into a general engagement after that. Dearborn's regiment held up the British advance in the Farmhouse while Poor's brigade with good support started to soften up Hamilton's (British) brigade. In the west Fraser's (British) brigade was fairing better against Learned's brigade with Patterson's brigade rushing into the middle of the battlefield to plug a gap caused by Poor's brigade's slow deployment. (See below two photos)

As the battle rolled on Learned's brigade finally collapsed in the west but Patterson was able to fill the void left in the American lines due to some of the mounting casualties on some of Fraser's units. Just after the left photo below was taken Poor's brigade finished off Hamilton's brigade collapsing it. With only one unit lost Poor turned it's attention to the German attack on the eastern flank. (see photo below right.

We ended up calling the game around 11:45. We probably had 3-4 more turns to come to a clear conclusion, but as GM if I were to call it I'd say the British had a slight advantage. Although Hamilton's command was collapsed, his two-gun battery could still continue to punish the Americans and Fraser and Von Breymann's brigades were still quite strong. Poor's brigade was fairly strong as was Patterson's but the American commands were of lower quality and Patterson's command was fairly small.

This was a very fun game to run and everyone played well and picked up the Black Powder rules fairly quickly. Some liked the rules a lot more than they expected to which was a fun surprise. With the outcome so close to a draw the big winner was everyone for having fun!

EW North Africa Escalation League (5)

Tonight I popped into Adler hobby for one of my rare Thursday night games. I was able to play a game with my German Stützpunkt company. Chris was the attacker with his Polish infantry company complete with a platoon of two Matilda tanks which I feared very much. I deployed a maximum amount of mines and barbed wire. Chris paid dearly to gap the minefields losing several infantry stands, but once he successfully cleared a section his Matilda tanks made short work of the barbed wire (see below left).

My only answers for the queens of the desert were my Stuka dive bombers and a single 88 gun pit. Chris chose to make a night attack which is his option when attacking with commonwealth infantry (Chris' Poles use the Australian fearless trained list with some of his own self-imposed restrictions for historical accuracy). After dawn broke I got one pass with my Stukas but I only was able to bail one Matilda which re-mounted the next turn easily. My 81mm mortar platoon did cause Chris' infantry quite a bit of trouble eventually causing one platoon to make a break check, which it failed even though it was fearless. Chris re-rolled using his CinC but failed a second time removing the platoon and officer. I can sympathize with Chris, this is the type of luck usually reserved for ME! Unfortunately Chris also had a very bad streak of luck when his Matildas pressed forward into a wooded hill in order to avoid my 88 gun pit - BOTH tanks bogged down (see below right). I was able to swoop in with my infantry platoon and jump the helpless tank crews eliminating the Matilda platoon. At the same time my Panzer IIc platoon was able to shoot up Chris' second infantry platoon with MG fire and close with an assault which, thanks to the earlier damage caused by my mortars, was enough to force it to check morale which it also failed even though it was fearless.

Being below half company strength Chris auto-failed his company morale check due to his CinC leaving the table earlier in the game. I have to say Chris played very well and his dice robbed him of a better performance. Without several streaks of bad luck I think he would have rolled over my small defensive force easily with his fearless infantry and Matilda tanks. Next time we play we'll be at a higher point total. I'll need to bring TWO 88 gun pits to deal with the Matildas. One is too easy to avoid, which Chris demonstrated to me with great skill tonight.

Black Powder Game - Freeman's Farm Set Up

I'm hosting my first Black Powder game on Friday. Since it's my first time I'm using the Freeman's Farm scenario from the rule book with very few changes. I'm going to be out gaming tomorrow night so I had to set everything up tonight in preparation for the game. Below are a few photos of the tabletop and a couple of photos of some table tent reference cards I made to help us keep track of what the different status markers mean.

Commonwealth 2 Pounder AT Platoon

This is a platoon of 2 pounder AT guns for my Australian early war North Africa infantry company. They may also be pressed into service mid war, although there they are of limited value. During the early war these will knock out anything the Axis can throw at the Australians. These can also be used as dismounted guns for my portee 2 pounder AT platoon that I painted up a few months ago.  I still have a few odds and ends that I could paint up for my Australian infantry company but this platoon finishes everything I NEED to field a full company up to 1750 points.

Small WWII Pillboxes

These are two WWII pillboxes. They were resin pieces not made for Flames of War. With a little sanding and carving I was able to affix them onto FOW medium bases which will allow me to use them as MG bunkers or pillboxes for FOW and still use them for other rule sets as well.

Being pre-cast resin these painted up quickly once I modified them to fit on the medium sized FOW bases. The most likely use for these I will have will be with my late war Finnish infantry.

WOTR Billmen

This is a unit of eight (8) stands of War of the Roses (WOTR) or 100 Years War English billmen. I picked these up off of Ebay from "The Horse & Musket Miniatures" for what I thought was a reasonable price by using Ebay's "Make an offer" feature.

I have a significant WOTR collection that was painted, and mostly used, before I started this blog. With my recent renewed interest in the Field of Glory rule set I'm hoping I can get some additional use out of my large WOTR army. All I have to do is build it up to be large enough to field two armies with it, or convince one ore more club mates to play WOTR. Adding these billmen is part of the effort to double the army size.

Black Powder Napoleonics (2) & FOW League Prizes

Today I got to play another great Black Powder game at Adler hobby hosted by the guys from the Boston Trained Bands. The scenario was from the 1813 Leipzig campaign and featured a Prussian attack on Wartemburg which was defended by Wartemburg infantry and cavalry supported by a brigade of French Infantry which I was able to command. The photo above shows an early turn with the Prussians rushing over a pontoon bridge advancing on a remote village outside Wartemburg. In the foreground you can see the outskirts of Westphalia proper with my French brigade taking up positions on a dike overlooking a stream which is between my troops and the Prussian advance.

Below left is the village being assaulted by the Prussians who had great success early knocking out half of the defending Wartemburgers. The right photo shows the other brigade of Prussians advancing towards the stream and dike with one brave battalion of French advancing out to meet their march columns to hopefully force them to deploy. The tactic had limited success early, but eventually with help from a second French battalion was able to stop the advance on this wing.

Left photo is a close up of the advancing Prussian column - beautifully painted figures! Right photo below is the last advance units of the Prussian force being met by our reserve cavalry and one of my infantry units who were able to rally to the center after repulsing the Prussians on the left flank. This was a great game which could easily have gone either way. The more Black Powder I play the more I think that it lends itself to larger games where the additional units can help average out the large swings in both combat and break checks (morale). With only a few units a couple bad rolls can sink you, but with more units things tend to even themselves out a bit more.

Below is a photograph of me receiving TWO prizes from December's Flames of War league at Adler Hobby. I was lucky enough to win the monthly random draw and also won the sportsman award (thanks much to those who nominated me). Each of these awards gives a blister as a prize (or equivalent credit towards larger boxed sets). I chose as my prize two Wirbelwind AA tanks to add to my late-war German force which I'll be fielding in Adler's upcoming late war league starting sometime in late February or early March. Battlefront generously sponsors the leagues at Adler with great prize support, which is icing on the cake when you add to it that you get a lot of GREAT gaming while you play in the leagues.

Field of Glory Round Robin Games (2)

Tonight the "Field of Glory Four" got together for another evening of round robin games using our 'Rise of Rome' armies. Tonight's match ups were my Mid-Republican Romans vs Phil's Seleucids (using my Seleucid army) and Charlies Late Republican Romans vs Mike's Carthaginians. In the photos below Phil and my games will be the left photos and Mike and Charlie's games with be the right photos.

Setup - Although I tried to clog the middle of the table with as much terrain as possible, Phil was able to move most of it harmlessly to the sides with the exception of one steep hill. In Charlie and Mike's game their terrain left for a good open center section.

The approaches - Phil and I pressed our battle lines forward with each of us pressing harder on our right flank. My Numidian cavalry engaged early to try to secure some fields with closed borders. On Charlie and Mike's table each of them were happy to press forward on the same flank with masses of cavalry. Charlie aggressively pushed the center with his Numidian skirmish infantry.

Mid-game - Roman vs Seleucid game ended up being a grind between Phil's imitation legions and my real legions. The only main difference was mine had some Triarii providing rear support. On Charlie and Mike's table the cavalry battle raged with both sides having some successes and Mike engaging his elephants with Charlie's cavalry. Charlie's skirmish infantry got broken, but did recover them and re-engaged them late in the game.

End game - I was able to break both of Phil's imitation legions and a cataphract cavalry unit. I lost a legion of my own and my Numidian cavalry. On my right I was able to press the flank and in the center the void caused by the legions allowed me to turn Phil's pike block. We called the game at 6-4 in points. Close game for sure. On Mike and Charlie's table Charlie had good success in the cavalry scrum pulling out to a 12-4 lead when we called it.

This was a great night of gaming. We hope to schedule another one in February where we'll go through our final matches in round one: Mike's Carthaginians vs My Romans and Charlie's Romans vs Phil's Seleucids.

'Average' 1-10 Rolls on 2 D6

I asked a mathematician friend of mine to help us come up with a way to roll the numbers 1-10 on two 6-sided dice using custom numbers on each face of the two dice. We wanted the numbers to have a 'normal' distribution similar to the 2-12 rolls a pair of normal dice have only with outcomes from 1-10. My friend found two solutions for making a pair of 6-sided dice to have outcomes from 1-10 formed in a normal distribution.

Each 'Case' has 2 dice, A and B with sides as indicated:

          DICE                          Outcome Distribution
========================  =====================================
Case 1: A: 0 1 2 3 4 5    Number: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10    
        B: 1 2 3 3 4 5      Freq: 1  2  4  5  6  6  5  4  2  1

Case 2: A: 0 2 3 3 4 6    Number: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10
        B: 1 2 2 3 3 4      Freq: 1  2  3  5  7  7  5  3  2  1

My mathematician friends says that Case 1 fits true statistical 'normal' distribution for all positions within 3.76 percent. Case 2 fits as well at the ends (same dist for 1, 2, 9 & 10) but is 'skewed' towards the center values too much (about 15% off of 'normal' distribution). Both are useable for wargaming. Case 2 would be more 'average' in wargaming terms.

Die 1A's opposite faces would add up to 5, Die 1B 6, Die 2A 6 and Die 2B 5. As for the actual arrangement of the faces, that is left as an excersize for the reader. As long as the opposite sizes add up the the correct numbers statistical distribution should be 'fair'. FYI normal dice add up to 7 on each pair of opposite faces.

I'm posting this information for my friends who play Fire & Fury (both classic and regimental versions) as a possible house modification. FYI I tried this and locals universally hated it and much preferred the original 10-sided 'wild' dice.

2012 Goals

Here were my goals for 2011 and how I did on each:

Goal One - Finish My Early War FOW German Pioneer Company - Done!
Although I still have a couple platoons of unpainted German figures I could add to the force, I've more than completed the Pioneers and added a bunch of Czech Panzer 35t tanks and armored cars that allow me to also field this as a Czech Panzer company.

Goal Two - Finish Re-Basing my 15mm ACW Armies - Done!

Goal Three - Finish my Roman and Seleucid FOG Armies - Done!
I have a couple of unpainted Roman battle groups, but these are only to make my already completed army even larger for historical games. My recent completion of two battle groups of Seleucid cataphracts have also finished up my Seleucid army.

Goal Four - Convention Participation - Done!
Although I didn't end up going to Historicon this year, I did attend both Huzzah! and Carnage 14 including running games at both and helping the Carnage staff organize their Centuries of Conflict historical theme games.

Reward For Making My Goals - Done!
While I ended up shelving my 15mm FOW British Infantry Company and Matilda Tank Company I did replace this with my mid and early war British and Australian FOW WWII forces and started in on a 15mm FOW German North Africa force to face them.

Variety, the Spice of Life - Mostly Failed
I had hoped to leaven the onslaught of  WWII I had planned on doing this year with a couple of 28mm AWI units. In the end I painted no AWI figures at all which I'm quite disappointed with myself about. I did however make great progress on our club's 28mm pirate project completing one and starting a second 28mm pirate ship using my laser engraver. This definitely is a huge divergence from the norm for me.

Over all I'm quite happy with achieving all four of my major goals and also being able to get a huge amount of progress completed on my early war desert FOW forces. I'm almost positive I'm not going to be able to complete 100% of my future goals with any regularity. That said, here are my goals for 2012:

Goal One - Finish My Early War FOW Desert Forces
My British and Australian forces are both more than 90% finished. I have a platoon of Crusader II tanks to finish to complete the British armor and a platoon of 2 pounder AT guns to complete the Australians. I'm not entirely sure what I need to finish to complete the German desert company, but I hope that most of what I need will come from my 'dead lead' box which currently holds a battery of 10.5cm leFH18 artillery guns, a platoon of motorcycle infantry and a battery of PaK36 AT guns.

Goal Two - Club Pirate Ship Game Project
I have to finish the CAD work on my 2nd pirate boat and hold a club 'build a boat' day at my house so other club members can get working on their boats. I need to do this as early in the year as possible to give everyone time to paint their assembled boats

Goal Three - More American Revolution
I WILL paint more 28mm AWI figures this year. I also will be running more AWI games including two I've already scheduled for January. My hope is that in addition to Volley & Bayonet games, which I love, I may also try a game of Black Powder with my AWI figures. I also plan to work on my own set of rules, which I'll post more about if I can make some decent progress on them. No promises on that for now!

Goal Four - Late War WWII FOW
After we finish our early war North Africa league at Adler we're going to be moving on to late war. I have a mostly complete Finnish engineer company which I may dabble in, but my primary goal for this league is to be able to field a German Panzerkompanie utilizing some Panzer IV and Panther A tanks I purchased painted from a friend many years ago. To do so I'll need to add some support, most likely in the form of som Panzerwerfer 42 rocket launchers, some Stug G tanks and maybe some infantry or motorcycle scouts.

Extra Credit - Re-Base my Napoleonic Austrian Army
I'm not officially listing this as a goal, since I think the above four are more than I can accomplish, but if I do get all of the above four completed, before I start anything new I have a fairly large Austrian Napoleonic army I purchased off of Ebay that I need to rebase from Napoleon's Battles basing to Volley & Bayonet. These are very nice figures, which I am assuming were painted by the Dragon Painting Service based on their basing and the style of the paint jobs on the figures. Until I rebase them I can't really use them in any games. If I don't get to this in 2012 it will definitely become a goal for 2013.

That's it! Sorry for the 'wall of text' post, but with a goals post there really aren't any photos I could add to break things up. Hopefully my next posts will be more 'fun'. My final word about all of my wargaming goals....I'll happily trade accomplishing ANY of them for a good game!